Among the provisions in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker?s controversial budget is one that would strip public university faculty and staff of collective bargaining rights. For Americans who don?t follow the world of higher education closely, this might be the most surprising provision. After all, who knew that university faculty even had collective bargaining rights? Aren?t unions more the stuff of blue-collar workers than Ph.D.s? Over the past decade, unions have become increasingly common on campus. Data collected from 2008 to 2010 by the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions show that about 440,000 faculty and graduate students are members of collective bargaining units, a 17% increase from five years ago.
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